Monday, March 10, 2008
Hello again! I hope that this post finds you well. It finds me at home, after a Monday at work after a long weekend in Washington DC. I headed down to visit Meg M., Erin B. and Phil (over from Ireland!) The weather wasn't particularly nice, but it was a great weekend. I got to spend time with people I miss, complete with beautiful architecture, aimlessly fun conversations, some excellent movies ("Good Bye Lenin," "Once") and some singing. (They got me to sing, and as nervous as I am about it nowadays, it felt great.) Here's a weird artsy picture I made of each of the four of us in front of a sculpture in the garden at the National Gallery of Art:
And here's some things I've been thinking about the last few days:
1.) Daylight savings time is a violation of my civil rights! The government cannot censor what I say... cannot force me to follow a religion... cannot search my home without a warrant... inalienable rights. In the cases of free speech and religion, these are subjective experiences: each of us has our own meanings attached to things. Now take the notion of time. It's pretty hard to interpret differently from person to person... it can't be sped up or slowed down... rewound or fast forwarded... yet the government feels it has a right to steal an hour of my precious sleep away from me. Who's to stop them from turning the clock on its head any time they want to? This madness must be stopped. Although I do like walking home in the daylight.
2.) I've been thinking about how often I think by a process of justification... I eat "this" because I ate "that" earlier, or will eat "that" later on today... I spend "this" because I did or didn't spend "that" another time... I wonder how pervasive this balancing act is. Does it work against spontaneity? I know I tend to rationalize things, so maybe this is putting a new spin on some of that. Do other people do it? I hear it in research pretty frequently. What do you think?
6 comments:
The one thing that I got from the weekend, was how small the world can be. I covered 7,200 miles for a 72 hour trip. Was it worth it? Of course it was... despite absent friends, and the weather the weekend still was what it was, just what we wanted it to be and more.!
on a sidenote, I haven't felt this rested in a long time.
in my opinion we only use the process of justification when we already know that we want something (that chocolate bar or this new pair of shoes) and we feel the need to defend the decision to ourselves.
being honest with oneself about what you want is more important than trying to justify your decisions to yourself, or others.
i guess it goes back to learning to love yourself and who you are and where you are in life before you try to find someone or something else.
sorry a bit random!
Lyndall! I loved seeing your comment. I think you hit the nail right on the head... we go through a lot of decisions that are a battle between "us vs. others." What's best for us? How much do we sacrifice based on what others might perceive? In a lot of ways, I feel that the nirvana we seek is just a state of perfect contentment with who we are. I love moments where I feel comfortable in my skin... where I'm not afraid to sing, no matter how loud it is. They don't happen as frequently as I wish they would, but I have to say... we they do... when I can sing out loud and know I've done it the way I wanted to... it sure feels good. "Know thyself" is a precursor to "Love thyself," I guess. Maybe we should all ask ourselves if we're really doing what makes us happy more often from now on.
I hate the DST switch also.
I struggled all week with the switch in time, and enjoy the light at the end of the work day, but I always wake up grumpy! :-)
The whole state of Arizona hates DST, and that's why we don't do it. Or it's already too damn sunny here and we don't need more. We're sunburned rebels.
Gebert... you wouldn't know sunburn if it came up and smacked you!
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